vivid
by your broken things
Summary: "It's like a car crash; the impact is hazy, but she remembers every moment after his lips touch hers in vivid detail." Ginny, Theo, and falling fireworks. / for HPFC, Ravishing Romance Competition.


**AN: Hiya. This is for the HPFC Ravishing Romance Competition (faraways) level Hard...I was given both characters. I got Theo Nott and Ginny- hope you guys like it.**

**x**

* * *

Ginny is **amazing.**

She is vivid and totally unforgettable; she loves being colorful, but she hates the color red. She always has.

Red is blood and battle and gore.

* * *

Ginny finds out she is a parselmouth when she's eight.

She never tells anybody. That would make people think she's dark. She's not dark. She's vivid and bright and _perfect_, didn't you know?

She talks to the snakes for hours; it fascinates her, the strange hissing sound.

Can all snakes speak this? Aren't there other forms, like humans have different languages?

The snakes say no; they are a smaller population, after all, so they all know the same tongue. She practices for hours, trying to get each word right; understanding came naturally. Speaking takes time.

* * *

Her first encounter with a Slytherin is in first year, and it's the worst Slytherin of all; and before him, Ginny is shy and sweet and adorable. And Tom changes her; some of his characteristics, his cunning…they stay with her, and she's no longer Ginny Weasley, the sweetheart; she's Ginny Weasley, the **firework**_, _the explosive, cunning flame-haired beauty who everyone is after and nobody trusts. She's shunned by all the Gryffindors in her year; everyone knows she's been up to something dodgy, by the end of first year, and she has. She knows she fell in love, too; she fell in love with **Tom Riddle****_, _**the manipulator, and the friend. The best friend. The most understanding, most perfect boy she's ever seen. And she's only twelve, but she's _head-over-heels_ for him.

Drawn, and repelled at the same time.

* * *

After first year, she shies away from her gift. Riddle used _her _because she knew Parseltongue, so she could open the Chamber of Secrets.

She makes herself forget how to do it.

But she's always drawn to snakes, even after that (literal and figurative)

* * *

And suddenly…Ginny isn't crushing on Harry Potter anymore.

He's the Boy Who Lived, sure, but her time with Tom has changed her, and some of his distaste for Harry has stayed with her; she no longer trembles when he enters a room. She's confident and cool and she's not quite a firework, not anymore; she doesn't quite _shine_. She's just…flame. Untamed, flickering flame.

She prefers to operate alone now. Just like Tom.

* * *

It takes time for Ginny to learn to open up; in third year, she's still cold. She's been _marked_, and she's a flame; the opposite of what Tom would have wanted from her. She's wild and dangerous, not cold and quiet; but she wants to stay away from the memory of her Tom, the boy she was in love with, the boy she _is _in love with.

(Not Voldemort (she's not scared of his name anymore). Tom.)

She is cold flame, and when a fourth-year Slytherin boy walks up to her and tries making a snide comment she smiles coolly and hexes him, walking away without looking back.

The boy sends something when her back is turned. She spins and blocks him. He raises an eyebrow, and smirks, and says, "Not bad for a Weasley girl."

She doesn't smile back. She says two words, the second of which is "off".

* * *

In fourth year, that same boy walks into the library. Her table is the only one with a free seat. He doesn't recognize her; she's grown taller (so her skirt looks a little shorter) and she's grown her hair. She's abandoned her tie and robe, and she could be from any house (except Hufflepuff; she's not smiling). He walks over and says, "Can I sit here?"

He's oddly polite for a Slytherin fifth year.

She nods briefly without looking up (she's growing kinder) and he sits down. Pulls out a textbook. Parchment. Quill. Ink.

It's the same textbook she's reading for extra credit. (Tom's mark will never really leave her, after all, and the only female at Hogwarts who'll talk to her is Hermione Granger.)

He begins writing. The ink glistens, and it catches her eye in the dim light. His writing is a neat kind of scrawl, the effortlessly gorgeous kind of script, and she feels jealous.

He smirks. "What house are you in?"

"What's it to you?" Ginny retorts.

"Well, I'm wondering if you're a Weasley, see. The skirt isn't short because you're trying to be a slut- it's about to rip. Anyone can see that."

He says this with an easy, cruel kind of smirk on his face, and Ginny scowls.

"So what if I am a Weasley?"

"Blood traitor." He hisses.

"Says the half blood boy." She retorts. She knows her enemies, and this one is Theodore Nott. She's explosive, and she's about to ignite.

His eyes widen slightly, before narrowing.

"I'd rather be a respectable half blood than a pure blood traitor, bitch."

"I have no interest in any of your stupid prejudices." She says coldly, returning to her textbook.

He's indifferent; ignoring her; and really, he's no different to the other Slytherins. Still, this one fascinates her. The tentatively in his prejudiced remarks are _different._

* * *

She finds herself always returning to that table, every day, despite the fact that it's not her favorite one in the corner. He returns, too; always a few tables away. Always out of reach.

She never talks to him, and he never talks to her.

They just watch each other, in silence. It's a kind of gray; dull, boring. A passing, every day color. Not like the vivid **clash **of green on green (hiding as a red).

Because Ginny's become a Slytherin inside; she's hiding behind flaming hair and a hotheaded personality, which is freezing over slowly. Someone will find her; someone will catch her out.

It has to be _him_, of course.

* * *

He catches her in the Room of Requirement, one day. Tom told her about it; she went in there to wash the rooster blood away, every night. But this time she's using the soundproof, mirrored room; she's screaming wild curses and watching them bounce back, and she's just about dodging them; she's so full of **darkness** and she needs to get it _out_. _He _walks in and just dodges the Cruciatus Curse, and she's over.

She pauses, unsure of what to say, and catches sight of herself; her hair is finally charred black, from ashes from a spell, and her nails are lined with soot. Her shirt is torn, exposing her stomach, and half her skirt is burned off. She is wild and untamed and utterly **raw****_. _**She loves it.

Tom would be ashamed of her (but maybe she's letting go of him, and she so wants to let go of him. So she gazes at the mirror, and slowly Tom flickers away; her love for him is…gone. Her love for him was ice, and she's on fire, because she's a fucking **firework**, and anyone who says otherwise will ignite from her gaze). And they stay; predator and predator, neither backing down; they're both attack dogs, now, and if one reacts so will the other.

His eyes, she notices, are the precise color of Slytherin green, and she knows she's lost. He's gravity, after all, and all fireworks have to fall down.

It's like a car crash; the impact is hazy, but she remembers every moment after his lips touch hers in vivid detail. She remembers his cold, slender hands touching the exposed skin of her waist. She remembers her hands, knotting themselves in his black hair- she doesn't remember deciding to do that, though- and she remembers every perfect moment after that.

And when they break away, they're panting and she doesn't remember their shirts coming off and she's lying on top of him with her legs wrapped around his waist. She doesn't remember any of it.

Just the few seconds after, and maybe a few seconds before.

She kisses him again, and they fit together perfectly; they are untamed firework and vivid green gravity (because he'll always be the one to make her fall) and they are **amazing.**


End file.
